Chargers Reset Body Clocks to Serve Some Time on Road
On Saturday morning, the Chargers will practice at 7 a.m., leave for the airport and board what Business Manager Pat Curran calls an “air bus” (read charter flight). Their destination will be Pittsburgh, the site of Sunday’s game against the Steelers.
Their departure will mark the beginning of a five-game stretch that will put them on the road four times. The first three games will take place at 1 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, which will be 10 a.m. according to the Chargers’ body clocks. The final away game will start at noon in Kansas City, which will also seem like 10 a.m. to the by-then jet-lagged Chargers.
Worse for the Chargers, three of those four road games--Pittsburgh, Washington and Kansas City--will be outdoors. The coolest game-time temperature the Chargers have faced this year has been 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Almost certainly, it will be colder than that for each game except the one in Indianapolis, where the Colts play in the climate-controlled Hoosier Dome.
Worse yet, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Kansas City play on artificial turf, the surface most dreaded by players spoiled by natural grass.
In short, just when the Chargers have started to play their best football of the year--two consecutive upset victories over Philadelphia and the Raiders--their schedule has turned into an ordeal.
Or as team publicist Rick Smith puts it: “It’s like the Germans marching into Siberia; John Wayne taking on the Japanese at Bataan; Hannibal crossing the Alps; Marco Polo discovering the East; Sherman marching to the sea; Juan Cabrillo sailing into San Diego. . .”
You get the idea.
Actually, nasty weather--”football weather” running back Tim Spencer calls it--could work in the favor of the Chargers, a team that relies more on its ground game and defense.
“I believe right now we have a more Northeast United States November and December football team than a Southwest United States November and December football team because we’re more effective running the ball,” says Coach Dan Henning.
And the Chargers even have a little history on their side. In the ‘80s, they are 15-9 in regular-season games played in cities located in the Eastern time zone. That’s not a bad road record in any time zone.
Earlier this year, much was made about the 49ers having to play five of their first six games on the road. All five of those games started at 10 a.m. Pacific time. And San Francisco won all five. In their only home game during that period, the 49ers lost to the Rams, 13-12.
Most of the reason for San Francisco’s success on the road is that, at 9-1, it is probably the best team in football right now. By comparison, the Chargers are 4-6.
But the explanations go deeper than that. Since 1981, the 49ers are 51-14-1 away from home. Their players say part of the reason is the first-class treatment owner Eddie DeBartolo affords his team on the road. Each player gets two seats on long plane flights. They get first-class meals no matter where they are sitting. And they stay at the best hotels.
Sports Illustrated recently published a copy of the in-flight menu for the 49ers’ trip home after they beat the Jets at the Meadowlands Oct. 29:
MENU:
Predeparture snack--Fried chicken, salami slices, cheese and crackers.
Appetizer--Crab Louis.
Salad--Lettuce and tomato
Entree--Chateaubriand, Duchesse potatoes, mixed vegetables, mushroom sauce, dinner rolls.
Dessert--Fresh strawberry shortcake, ice cream bars, fruit and cheese baskets, macadamia nuts.
Some death march.
Curran says the Chargers will get similar tender loving care on their long trips, including first-class meals and at least two seats per player.
“Some get three seats,” he says.
One thing the Chargers are doing differently than last year is traveling on Saturday. Former Coach Al Saunders wanted his team to get acclimated. So he would conduct a short practice on Friday and bus immediately to the airport so the team could arrive by Friday night.
Henning’s Chargers are flying Saturdays.
“Whatever time we have to leave to get to our destination by 5 p.m., that’s when we leave,” Henning says.
Henning says he would rather not disrupt the routine of the normal Friday practice schedule “for the sake of three lousy hours.” But the reason for the 7 a.m. practice Saturday is a concession to the time zone change. He says he hopes the players will be tired enough when they arrive in Pittsburgh Saturday night that they will want to go to sleep early.
Reaction among the players to the Friday-Saturday change has been mixed.
“I don’t really care for Saturday travel,” says Spencer, who scored the winning touchdown against the Raiders last Sunday night. “I would like to go in on Friday and kind of get acclimated. Especially after a long trip.”
Cornerback Gill Byrd says a player ought to begin preparing for long trips early in the week by getting more sleep.
“Then when you have to wake up earlier on Sunday it won’t affect you as much because you’ve gotten a number of good nights sleep prior to that Sunday,” he says. “Now if you just go and try to get some sleep that Saturday night, which you can’t, because you’re going to want to go to sleep a lot later, there are times when that is going to pose a problem.”
Particularly, Byrd says, to the bachelors on the team.
“We have a lot of bachelors on this team,” he says with a smile.
One of the most prominent among them is Sammy Seale, Byrd’s running mate at cornerback. But Seale says he prefers Saturday trips to Friday trips.
“Boom, boom,” he says. “You get in there and you get it over with. It might even make us hungrier.”
And it might even give bachelors less time to be bachelors.
Receivers coach Charlie Joiner was a Charger for 11 years. He played for coaches who traveled east on Friday and coaches who traveled on Saturdays.
“Sure, you lose some hours,” Joiner says. “But it never seemed to bother me. If it did, I didn’t notice.”
Joiner says it doesn’t matter when you wake up. The key is preparing mentally and focusing on the game. And that, he says, “should start Wednesday.”
The NFL scheduled only 10 of its 28 teams to play four road games in five weeks in 1989. San Francisco, the only one of those with five away games in six weeks, was the most successful. Of the teams that have completed their “death marches,” Buffalo and Phoenix finished 2-3, Indianapolis 1-4. Cincinnati is 0-2 in the middle of their road duty, Minnesota 3-1, Chicago 1-1, and New Orleans 1-1.
Tampa Bay, a team you might expect the league to schedule at home late in the season because of its warm weather location, begins its rough road stretch in Chicago Sunday. Go figure.
Henning spent four years as head coach in Atlanta, whose Falcons have spent 24 years looking for a way to cross three time zones and beat the Rams, a division rival. Only once in that span have they beaten the Rams in California. It was in 1984, and Henning was the Falcons’ head coach.
Historically though, traveling east has been tougher than traveling west, particularly this late in the year. But Henning stresses the importance of maintaining a routine regardless of which direction the team is heading.
Earlier this season, two eastern teams--the Giants and the Eagles--played two consecutive games west of the Mississippi. Both opted to remain in a warm clime to practice between games. Both were upset in the second game. The Chargers beat the Eagles after the Eagles had prepared at Torrey Pines High School, and the Rams beat the Giants after the Giants had trained in Phoenix.
If the weather gets foul in Pittsburgh, Washington or Kansas City, the Chargers will be prepared. Equipment manager Sid Brooks says the Chargers will load two tons of extra cold weather equipment into the belly of the team plane no matter what the advance weather report says. Stuff like long underwear, jerseys with pockets, jackets, parkas, gloves, special socks and lots more.
“We have it all,” says Brooks, who regularly consults with duck hunters and mountain climbers in the off-season to find out what they are wearing.
The most important areas, he says, are the hands and the feet because they are the first areas to feel the cold. One state-of-the-art item the Chargers have added to their cold weather arsenal is something Brooks calls “The Michael Jackson glove.”
Why the Michael Jackson glove?
“Because they’re kind of silver,” Brooks says.
Henning can only hope his players are smart enough to wear one on each hand. He can also only hope they will make his players “bad” in the best sense of the word.
Charger Notes
Charger guard David Richards on the possibility of snow at Three Rivers Stadium for Sunday’s Chargers-Steelers game: “Far out, I haven’t seen snow in years.” . . . Asked if he had anything more to say about defensive end Burt Grossman’s Wednesday remarks on the Steelers, which were mostly derogatory, Charger Coach Dan Henning said, “No.” Grossman said he hadn’t heard much from his own teammates about the remarks and the attendant publicity. “I guess they’re sort of used to it,” he said. Grossman said he did talk to Steeler linebacker Jerry Olsavsky, his former college roommate at Pitt, about disparaging remarks Grossman made about Steeler offensive lineman Tom Ricketts, also a teammate at Pitt. “Jerry said Tom was mad,” Grossman said. . . . The Chargers made it official by placing injured snapper Chris Gannon (knee) on injured reserve and activating Mark Walczak. Walczak “did all right” snapping in practice Thursday according to Henning. . . . Henning still plans to use Chris Bahr for field goals and extra points in Pittsburgh. But just in case Bahr’s cracked rib injury acts up, he is giving practice time to linebacker Billy Ray Smith and punter Hank Ilesic. Both kicked Thursday. “Billy Ray’s kicks would be harder to hit if you were at the plate,” Henning said, meaning Smith’s kicks fluttered like a baseball knuckleball. “But he was pretty accurate.” . . . The Charger equipment manager, a character by the name of Sidney Joseph Patrick Brooks, spends most of his working hours in the “B2 Penthouse.” The B2 stands for the button on the elevator that designates the lowest level of San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. The Penthouse is the caged area behind which Brooks stores equipment. Brooks also answers to the nicknames “Sid” and “Doctor.”